Saturday, April 10, 2010

The Pakistani intelligence service has set free at least two senior Afghan Taliban militants even as it helped the United States detain the Taliban’s second-ranking commander in the area, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.

Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the releases had occurred as the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, worked with US intelligence operatives to capture Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and other insurgents.

The quiet actions by the ISI were detected by US intelligence agencies but not publicly disclosed, the report said.

According to the paper, US military and intelligence officials said they were evidence that parts of Pakistan’s security establishment continued to support the Taliban.

The US officials declined to identify the Taliban figures who were released because of the secrecy surrounding US monitoring of the ISI, The Post noted.

But the freed captives were senior Taliban members the United States wanted in its custody, the report said.

OBAMA AND HOLBROOKE ARE BLOWING IT - BIGTIME.

KARZAI AND THE ISI ARE PULLING AWAY.

WHY NOT!? THEY SEE OBAMA APPEASING IRAN AND PUTIN AND SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS: WEAKNESS.

The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has cast doubt over Nato’s planned summer offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar, as more than 10,000 American troops pour in for the fight.

Karzai threatened to delay or even cancel the operation — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted in Kandahar by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province.

The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has cast doubt over Nato’s planned summer offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar, as more than 10,000 American troops pour in for the fight.Karzai threatened to delay or even cancel the operation — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted in Kandahar by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province, The Sunday Times revealed.

Visiting last week to rally support for the offensive, the president was instead overwhelmed by a barrage of complaints about corruption and misrule. As he was heckled at a shura of 1,500 tribal leaders and elders, he appeared to offer them a veto over military action. “Are you happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out?” he asked.

The elders shouted back: “We are not happy.”

“Then until the time you say you are happy, the operation will not happen,” Karzai replied.

General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, who was sitting behind him, looked distinctly apprehensive. The remarks have compounded US anger and bewilderment with Karzai, who has already accused the United States of rigging last year’s presidential elections and even threatened to switch sides to join the Taliban.

Karzai had a frosty relationship with the Obama administration from the outset. It took a sharp turn for the worse late last year during a three-month stand-off over the Afghan presidential election. A U.N. backed watchdog threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes on grounds of fraud.

The U.S. ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, wrote in a classified cable in November, later leaked, that Karzai was "not an adequate strategic partner."

OBAMA IS BLOWING IT.

HE MAY GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE MAN WHO LOST AFGHANISTAN.

WE NEED KARZAI IN AFGHANISTAN AS MUCH AS WE NEEDED STALIN IN WW2;

THEREFORE, OBAMA'S PUBLIC SPAT WITH KARZAI IS STUPID AND COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.

All flights carrying troops from the Manas base, a vital cog in supplying Nato operations in Afghanistan, were suspended from Friday evening, a spokesman for the base said. Troops are using alternative routes in and out of Afghanistan.

“While normal flight operations at Manas were resumed on Friday, a decision was taken on Friday evening to temporarily divert military passenger transport flights,” the base’s spokesman, Rickardo Bodden, told Reuters by telephone.

Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was a security-related decision made by the base commander on the ground.

Pentagon officials say Manas is central to the war effort against the Taliban, allowing around-the-clock flights in and out of neighbouring Afghanistan. About 50,000 troops passed through last month alone.

Members of Kyrgyzstan’s self-proclaimed new leadership have said the US lease on the base could be shortened.

Russia, which sees former Soviet Kyrgyzstan as part of its traditional sphere of interest, also has an air base in the country. A Russian official, who declined to be named, said on Thursday that the country should have only a Russian base.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first world leader to recognise the authority of the self-proclaimed government, just hours after it took power, raising suspicions that Moscow had played a role in the events.

Otunbayeva has described Russia as a key ally and publicly thanked Putin for his support. Almazbek Atambayev, deputy head of the new government, met Putin in Moscow yesterday but there were no details of the talks.

While the crash is not likely to substantially change Poland’s relationships with other countries, including its plans to host part of an American missile defense system, it could agitate Poland’s relationship with Russia.

Mr. Kaczynski, 60, a pugnacious nationalist who often clashed with Russia, was on his way to the Katyn, where members of the Soviet secret police executed Polish officers captured after the Red Army invaded Poland in 1939.

Relations between Warsaw and Moscow have been strained ever since. For half a century, Moscow denied involvement in the killings, blaming the Nazis. But last Wednesday, Mr. Putin took a major step to improve relations by becoming the first Russian or Soviet leader to join Polish officials in commemorating the massacre’s anniversary. He was joined there by Mr. Tusk.

Mr. Kaczynski, seen by the Kremlin as less friendly to Russia, was not invited. Instead, he decided to attend a separate, Polish-organized event on Saturday.

... Mr. Kaczysnki, 60, was elected president in 2005 just as his identical twin brother, Jaroslaw, became head of the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice government. He forged close relationships with Ukraine and Georgia and pushed for their accession into NATO, arguing passionately that a stronger NATO would keep Russia from reasserting its influence over Eastern Europe.

He was a major supporter of plans for part of an American antiballistic missile defense system to be based in Poland, infuriating Russia.

He got tough with Putin's Russia and negotiated new treaties with them which strengthen us. NOT.

He closed Gitmo. NOT.

He helped the democracy movements in Cuba and Iran. NOT.

Lowered unemployment and got the economy moving again. NOT.

Passed a very popular and simple health care plan which has a public option, lowers costs, lowers the deficit and improves medical care and immediately expands coverage to another 30 million people. NOT.

Increased transparency in government. NOT.

Moved us to a post-racial society. NOT.

Got the Middle East peace process moving along nicely. NOT.

OMG: Obama is a total f**king failure.

OBAMA: THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER - IN RECORD TIME!

OBAMA: HE ALMOST MAKES US MISS CARTER!

EXIT QUESTIONS: Why are so many Democrats and liberals and leftists willing to fall on their swords for this total effin' failure? They seem to be willing to follow him to the gates of Hell? WHY?!??!

I think there are three reasons:

(1) He's black, and liberals and leftists want the first black president to BE a success. So they call his failure successes and cut him slack

(2) Liberals and leftists also know that deep down inside, Obama is a hardcore life-long leftist, so they are willing to cut him a lot more slack.

(3) They know that control by the left of the three branches - and especially Congress and the White House - is a once in a generation thing, so they are willing to take whatever socialistic laws they can get while they can.

Things will change the November!

I think the cynical and utterly corrupt Obama thinks that his re-election chances might improve after the GOP retakes Congress.

I think the Chicago Machine is ready to run Obama against Congress in 2012.

We will slaughter him in 2012. too.

UPDATE:

On second thought, I too would follow Obama to the Gates of Hell - but only to toss him in, lock it and throw away the key!

Patients are being put at risk due to cuts in doctors' working hours meaning there are more shift handovers, a defence organisation has warned.

As doctors' hours have been cut under the European Working Time Directive, more shifts have been introduced to compensate. But this means there are more handovers between shifts when doctors have to brief the new team about the condition of the patients on the wards.

This can lead to mistakes and errors if the new team is not properly informed about what actions have been taken, what drugs have been ordered and which patients are known to have deteriorated.

Research has revealed that the more handovers doctors do the more information they forget.

The Working Time Directive has been controversial by cutting the number of hours junior doctors can work from 56 to 48. This will affect the quality of training, the experience of consultants in the next ten years and ability of the NHS to provide enough doctors to treat patients effectively, some have argued.

The incentives of private medicine favor the patient; the incentives of government health care favor the bureaucrats

How best to describe the difference between private medicine, in which we seek out, "hire," and pay our own doctors, on the one hand, and a government-run public clinic system, on the other? Here are a few words of wisdom from a man who knew both systems:

"In a private fee-for-service medical system, a dead patient is a revenue loss. In the National Health Service (UK), a dead patient was a cost savings."

The above quote is from my late father. He had a very unique perspective on the practice of medicine, especially as it relates to the various delivery systems. He was born and brought up in England and entered medical school there in 1950, training under the National Health Service and graduating in 1956. He emigrated to the US in 1957 and went into private practice for 24 years, 8 years pre-Medicare and the period after until 1981, becoming a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical school and a US Citizen along the way. In 1982 he decided he wanted to give something back to his adopted country in gratitude for the wonderful opportunities it had given him, so he joined the US Navy at age 52 and served first as the head of the Radiology residency program (27 residents and the largest program in the military) and then Chairman of the Radiology Department at the Balboa Naval Regional Medical Center in San Diego until his retirement at the rank of captain in 1991.

Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out but when they will I can only guess. They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy, She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me. I can’t help it if I’m lucky.

A federal judge said Friday he will decide next week whether to black out certain sections before he makes public a key government filing in the case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel said he will let prosecutors and defense lawyers weigh in on what parts of the filing should be kept sealed before he makes his decision and releases the document on Wednesday.

THE BLAGOBAMA-RAMA DRAMA WILL BE A GREAT REMINDER OF OBAMA'S CHICAGO MACHINE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN NOW AND NOVEMBER!

The European Campaign to end the Siege on Gaza decided on Saturday to send naval fleets to Gaza strip in order to support its trapped population for more than 1,000 days.

Arafat Mady, president of the Campaign, said in an interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), "the fleet which will set a precedent in the history of breaking the siege, will house three ships loaded with different types of relief and aid materials. Seven other ships will be full of solidarity activists with the besieged residents of Gaza."

He said after a meeting of the organisation community of the trip in its office in Geneva, "The new in this campaign is that the convoy, which will move next month, will have five alliances of European powers with different experiences in facing critical humanitarian situations resulting from the embargo."

"The ships will sail under the Turkish and Greek flags", indicates Arafat Mady, "it will follow the international waters leading to Palestinian territorial waters adjacent to the Gaza Strip, and thus there will not be any pretext for the Israeli authorities to intercept the fleet.", he added.

The ships will carry ready made houses for the displaced people, medical equipment, essential drugs, food, equipments for disabled and equipment for purifying drinking water and the essential requirements of daily life that lacks residents.

"A group of European politicians, parliamentarians, intellectuals, human rights activists and volunteers in the field of humanitarian relief from European and Arab countries and around the world will join the fleet to Gaza", he added.

THIS IS NOT A FLEET INTENDED FOR HUMANITARIAN AID.

THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL ALINSKY-TYPE OF CONFRONTATIONAL EFFORT TO PROMOTE THE ISOLATION OF ISRAEL.

REMEMBER:

THESE PEOPLE SUPPORTING THIS FLEET ARE SUPPORTING HAMAS:

HAMAS IS A JIHADO-TERRORIST ORGANIZATION WHICH REFUSES TO EVEN RECOGNIZE ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST,

AND HAMAS IS IN AN INTERNECINE WAR WITH FATAH, ANOTHER JIHADIST GROUP FOUNDED BY ARAFAT, NOW LED BY ABBAS.

THOSE WHO SUPPORT HAMAS ARE SUPPORTING THOSE WHO WOULD COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST JEWS AND ISRAELIS.

THEY ARE EITHER EVIL OR DUPES.

WHERE DO YOU THINK BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL STAND WHEN THIS INEVITABLE CONFRONTATION BEGINS?

HE WILL CONTINUE TO SIDE WITH THE ARABS.

EXIT QUESTION: IF OBAMA REALLY WAS A CRYPTO-MUSLIM AND/OR A RADICAL LEFTISTS WHO HATED ISRAEL, THEN WOULD HE BE DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY?

NOPE.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

VOTE THE DEMOCRATS OUT THIS NOVEMBER.

AND TELL EVERY JEWS YOU KNOW WHO SUPPORTS OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS TO WAKE THE EFF UP!

The phenomenon of time dilation is a strange yet experimentally confirmed effect of relativity theory. One of its implications is that events occurring in distant parts of the universe should appear to occur more slowly than events located closer to us. For example, when observing supernovae, scientists have found that distant explosions seem to fade more slowly than the quickly-fading nearby supernovae.

The effect can be explained because (1) the speed of light is a constant (independent of how fast a light source is moving toward or away from an observer) and (2) the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, which causes light from distant objects to redshift (i.e. the wavelengths to become longer) in relation to how far away the objects are from observers on Earth.

In other words, as space expands, the interval between light pulses also lengthens.

Since expansion occurs throughout the universe, it seems that time dilation should be a property of the universe that holds true everywhere, regardless of the specific object or event being observed.

However, a new study has found that this doesn’t seem to be the case - quasars, it seems, give off light pulses at the same rate no matter their distance from the Earth, without a hint of time dilation.

Astronomer Mike Hawkins from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh came to this conclusion after looking at nearly 900 quasars over periods of up to 28 years. When comparing the light patterns of quasars located about 6 billion light years from us and those located 10 billion light years away, he was surprised to find that the light signatures of the two samples were exactly the same.

... There’s also a possibility that the explanation could be even more far-reaching, such as that the universe is not expanding and that the big bang theory is wrong.

Or, quasars may not be located at the distances indicated by their redshifts, although this suggestion has previously been discredited.

Although these explanations are controversial, Hawkins plans to continue investigating the quasar mystery, and maybe solve a few other problems along the way.

Hawkins’ paper will be published in an upcoming issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

MEASURING THE REDSHIFT, AND ASSUMING THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS A CONSTANT, HAVE BEEN KEYS TO DATING & MAPPING THE UNIVERSE.

IT MAY VERY WELL BE THAT THESE ASSUMPTIONS - AND THE BIG BANG THEORY - NEED TO BE ENTIRELY RETHOUGHT OUT.

New figures from the fresh produce organisation Freshfel Europe reveal British consumers ate 1% more fruit in 2008 compared with the previous five-year average but vegetable consumption plummeted by 11 per cent, The Grocer reported.

Overall European fruit consumption fell 1 per cent in that period, with vegetable consumption dropping by 14 per cent.

Europeans ate an average of 439lb (199kg) of fruit and vegetables per person in 2008, an 8 per cent drop.

The figures follow several years of Government-promoted healthy eating campaigns including 5-a-day, Change4Life and the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme.

The Department of Health has spent £3.3 million on the 5-a-day campaign alone in the past four years, a spokeswoman told the trade magazine.

Today's figures follow a study released earlier this week casting doubt on the cancer-preventing benefits of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

THIS NANNYSTATE BS IS A TERRIBLE TRIFECTA:

THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO BUSINESS TELLING US WHAT TO EAT.

IT'S A WASTE OF MONEY WHEN THEY DO.

IT'S OUR TAX MONEY SPENT TO AID THE PATRONS OF THE POLITICIANS.

LEFT-WING NANNYSTATERS NEED TO BE SPANKED - AND THEY WILL BE THIS SPRING IN BRITAIN AND THIS FALL IN THE USA!

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday became the first Russian or Soviet leader to join Polish officials in commemorating the anniversary of the murder of thousands of Polish officers by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II.

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, center, took part in a wreath-laying ceremony in the Katyn forest on Wednesday.

Mr. Putin cast the executions as one tragedy out of many wrought by what he called the Soviet Union’s “totalitarian regime.”

“We bow our heads to those who bravely met death here,” Mr. Putin said at a site in the Katyn forest close to the Russian city of Smolensk, where 70 years ago members of the Soviet secret police executed more than 20,000 Polish officers captured after the Soviet Army invaded Poland in 1939.

“In this ground lay Soviet citizens, burnt in the fire of the Stalinist repression of the 1930s; Polish officers, shot on secret orders; soldiers of the Red Army, executed by the Nazis.”

THE MASSACRE WAS NOT ATYPICAL; IT WAS AN S.O.P. - FOR AND STALIN AND THE USSR.

Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (Polish pronunciation: [ˈlɛx alɛˈksandɛr kaˈtʂɨɲskʲi](listen); 18 June 1949 – 10 April 2010) was the President of the Republic of Poland from 2005 to 2010, a politician of the party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS). Kaczyński served as Mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 22 December 2005, the day before his presidential inauguration. He was the identical twin brother of the former Prime Minister of Poland and current Chairman of the Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński.

... In the 1970s Lech Kaczyński was an activist in the pro-democraticanti-Communist movement in Poland, Workers' Defence Committee, as well as the Independent Trade Union movement. In August, 1980, he became an adviser to the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee in the Gdańsk Shipyard and the Solidarity movement. During the martial law introduced by the communists in December, 1981, he was interned as an anti-socialist element. After his release from internment, he returned to trade union activities, becoming a member of the underground Solidarity.

When Solidarity was legalized again in the late 1980s, Lech Kaczyński was an active adviser of Lech Wałęsa and his Komitet Obywatelski Solidarność in 1988. From February to April, 1989, he participated in Polish Round Table talks.

... In 2001 he founded the conservative political party Law and Justice (PiS) party with his brother Jarosław. Lech Kaczyński was the president of the party between 2001 and 2003. His brother Jaroslaw is its current chairman.

... During his inauguration he stated several goals he would pursue during his presidency. Among those concerning internal affairs were: increasing social solidarity in Poland, bringing justice to those who were responsible or affected by communist crimes in the People's Republic of Poland, fighting corruption, providing security in economy, and safety for development of family. Kaczyński also stated that he would seek to abolish differences between regions. In his speech he also put emphasis on combining modernisation with tradition and remembering the teachings of Pope John Paul II.

On December 21, 2008, Lech Kaczyński became the first Polish head of state to visit a Polish synagogue for a religious service. His attendance coincided with the first night of Hanukkah.[11]

David Frum, A Buckley For Our TimeFrum is on a mission to penetrate Fox World with a message from reality.

by Jonathan Rauch

Saturday, April 10, 2010

In October 1965, William F. Buckley made it possible for American conservatives to come in from the wilderness and govern. In his magazine, National Review, he published a 12-page "special feature section" that read Robert Welch and his John Birch Society followers out of respectable conservatism.

Welch and the Birchers saw liberalism and communism as essentially the same thing. Their kookiness, according to Buckley, threatened to discredit both anti-communism and anti-liberalism. "Mr. Welch, for all his good intentions, threatens to divert militant conservative action to irrelevance and ineffectuality," Buckley wrote. "By the extravagance of his remarks, he repels, rather than attracts, a great following."

Buckley's gambit succeeded. The Birchers and their conspiracy-mongering were banished from the mainstream conservative coalition, and the stage was set for the reality-based critique of liberalism that brought Ronald Reagan to power.

The Birch Society nowadays is a trivial remnant (although it has a pretty spiffy website). But extremism, insularity, and anti-intellectualism are thriving within the conservative movement as they have not since the 1960s. Haven't you heard? Hillary Rodham Clinton and Benito Mussolini are essentially the same thing! President Obama is working to end the American Republic and impose European-style socialism! Why, he may not even be an American! (Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the rock star of the Republican Right, said last year that Obama's citizenship is a "fair question." Sure. And, as Welch insisted, it's a fair question whether Dwight Eisenhower was a communist.)

If there is a Buckley today, his name is David Frum. "We've built a whole alternative-reality system," he said in an interview last week. "Conservatism is shrinking into a movement of cultural dissent."

INSANE.

WF Buckley loved Rush, and Frum hates him; ergo: Rauch is wrong.

Totally.

WFB contributed MIGHTILY to conservative thought in every medium. Frum has contributed zero to the advance of conservatism in the USA. ZERO. Nobody takes him seriously except leftists in the MSM who want a TALKING HEAD they can call a Republican who will trash REPUBLICANS.

McCain used to fit the bill. Now it's Frum - probably because the left is pissed at McCain for bringing Sarah Palin to the foreground.

Frum's strategy for "saving" the GOP is ILLOGICAL: We CANNOT make the USA more conservative by making the GOP less conservative.

REPEAT:

We CANNOT make the USA more conservative by making the GOP less conservative.

REPEAT: WE CANNOT MAKE THE USA MORE CONSERVATIVE BY MAKING THE GOP LESS CONSERVATIVE.

We need to get MORE Americans to realize that conservative principles are not only at the core of our Founding principles, but are the principles which inform the policies that actually work effectively, while leftist principles and policies do not — not anywhere or at anytime.

Private schools are better than public.

Social Security is a bankrupt PONZI SCHEME.

Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt, and both are rife with fraud and extremely poorly run.

If gov't ran things better than private enterprise then we’d all be speaking Russian and driving Yugo’s! and China and India would’ve not reformed — or started feeding all their people and exporting products and well-trained well-educated people by the MILLION.

And North Korea would be better than South Korea.

And Cubans still be richer than Jamaicans — as they once were.

And so on.

Even the NYTimes’ Kristof admitted this week that blacks were better off living in Rhodesia than Zimbabwe.

Most recently, socialism caused the Housing Bubble and the housing crash and the financial crash.

FACE IT FOLKS: socialism is the biggest cause and “prolonger” of poverty in the world — and also the leading purveyor of genocide in the 20th Century.

If we REALLY want to make poverty history then we need to make socialism history.

Getting back to Frum and Rauch:

Watering down conservative values to attain more political support would not lead the USA to become less statist or less leftist; ergo: it would not help America grow and prosper.

Watering down conservative values will not yield the GOP more votes, either. Scott Brown was PRO-WATER-BOARDING and ANTI-OBAMACARE - it helped him win.

THEREFORE: Frum — by promoting a watered down squishy PC-GOP - is hurting not only the GOP but the future of the USA.

He’s effectively doing the work of Soros.

I think he should be ignored.

LET ME REPHRASE THAT:

Most people already ignore him; I see no reason for that to change.

A WORD ABOUT RAUCH: HIS ESSAY MAKES ME BELIEVE HE'S A BAD PERSON BECAUSE IN IT HE'S ESSENTIALLY SURREPTITIOUSLY TRYING TO EQUATE TEA PARTIERS WITH BIRCHERS AND RACISTS.

After 1994, though, when the retirement of Justice Harry A. Blackmun made Justice Stevens the court’s senior associate, the language of his dissents started to become noticeably sharper, with a theme running through them: that the Supreme Court had lost touch with fundamental notions of fair play.

I think the Constitution trumps a person's personal sense of "fair-play". I think it trumps a judge's sense of fair-play - even a Justice's sense of fair-play.

And Justice's should decide based on the LAW, not their personal idea of how a decision might lead to an end they like.

JUDGING WITH THIS SENSE OF "FAIR-PLAY" IS ACTUALLY A PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: JUSTICE IS SUPPOSED TO BE BLIND - AND NOT CARE ABOUT THE RESULT OR WHO MIGHT BENEFIT, BUT JUST FOLLOW THE LAW.

Actually "fair-play" is leftist code for "economic justice" and that means guaranteeing a result and that is socialism.

If you want more "fair-play" than is in the Constitution, then amend it, don't bend it.

In an opinion posted on the blog 'the Corner' on 10/22/08 [6], Mr. McCarthy wrote "I believe that the issue of Obama's personal radicalism, including his collaboration with radical, America-hating Leftists, should have been disqualifying."

In May 2009, Mr. McCarthy provided details of a letter declining an invitation from Attorney GeneralEric Holder for a round-table meeting with PresidentBarack Obama concerning the status of people detained in the War on Terror. Mr. McCarthy noted his dissension with the administration in their policies regarding the detainees.[7] On December, 5, 2009 he came out publicly against prosecuting Islamic terrorists in civil courts rather than military tribunals, saying "A war is a war. A war is not a crime, and you don’t bring your enemies to a courthouse."[8]

The Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms is to commemorate Winston Churchill's famous "never has so much..." wartime speech by reading it aloud in Whitehall on Friday August 20.

Part of the Imperial War Museum's commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the reading will be delivered from the plaza outside the famous War Rooms exactly 70 years after Churchill delivered it to the House of Commons.

In the speech he tried, successfully, to stir the hearts and minds of the nation and to convince the public that, despite a string of defeats, Britain was standing firm against the Nazi War machine.

It is said to have been inspired by a visit to the operations Room at RAF Uxbridge on August 16, after which he turned to one of his aides and said: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

The speech that grew from this utterance also established the phrase "the few", used to describe the outnumbered Battle of Britain RAF pilots who fought off the onslaught of the Luftwaffe.

Now part of the general folklore of the Battle, the speech is today considered a defining moment of the conflict and one of Churchill's most emotive and stirring pronouncements.

OIL deposits just 10 kilometres off the coast of Dublin have the potential to provide our entire oil needs for up to 12 years, according to a survey by Irish exploration company Providence Resources.

Providence’s latest analysis suggests the Kish Bank Basin, known as the Dalkey Island exploration prospect, could contain 870 million barrels of oil. Ireland currently consumes 200,000 barrels of oil per day.

A teenager who was gored by a bull in Maine is going to have the last laugh. His family shot the bull and plans to eat it.

Seventeen-year-old Durham resident Vinnie Huntington says he was rounding up the bull and a steer when the bull turned on him Monday night. He says the 1,800-pound bull gored him and flipped him. ... His mother and a neighbor intervened to save him. ...

He says he'll participate in the feast. He says he's going to enjoy it.

Al-Madadi was flying first class to Denver for a consular visit with jailed al Qaeda member Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri who is imprisoned at the Colorado "supermax" penitentiary. Al-Marri was arrested in Illinois shortly after the 9/11 attacks and is believed to have been an al Qaeda sleeper agent.

WAS THIS CREEP READ HS RIGHTS? WAS HE INTEROGATED BY THE CIA? OR WAS HE TREATED WITH KID GLOVES?

The USA and the UK demanded that the IRA disarm before there could be a peace deal in Northern Ireland.

But FATAH and HAMAS and HIZBALLAH are allowed to remain armed.

Enemies of Israel are given all sorts of leeway - even aid - that was never given to Sinn Fein or the IRA.

WHY IS THIS PARTICULARLY RELEVANT?

The Obama's special envoy is George Mitchell and the EU's special envoy is Tony Blair and these two men were the principle interlocutors for Northern Ireland's negotiations.

They shouldn't treat Israel worse than they treated Northern Ireland. They shouldn't treat the terrorists who attack Israel better than they did the terrorists who attacked Northern Ireland and Britain.

This week oil climbed to $87 a barrel, its highest level since October 2008 and prompted concerns that triple-digit crude was once again in the offing.

This was after a period of eight months when oil traded between $70 and $80, a narrow band that pleased oil producers without hurting consumers too much.

The latest surge seems to have been prompted by rising confidence in a global economic recovery, even if most traders and bankers are still cautious about supply and demand fundamentals.

Worries about the Greek economy have pegged prices back over the last couple of days but the more bullish Wall Street banks see prices climbing further, with Barclays Capital forecasting $97, Goldman Sachs $110 and Morgan Stanley $100 next year.

But the higher prices go, the deeper the concerns that they will stifle global growth. Jeff Rubin, a former CIBC chief economist and author of a book on oil and globalisation, says: “Triple-digit oil prices are going to threaten a world recovery.”

A top secret case involving national security that was long kept under wraps by the IDF censor but was published in the international media was finally authorized for publication this morning. It involved the alleged theft of 2,000 secret IDF documents by a former soldier who worked as a journalist for the left-leaning Hebrew language news website Walla.

[...]

The facts that are permitted for publication are as follows:

Journalist Anat Kam, 23, is accused of stealing over 2,000 IDF classified documents, many hundreds of which are termed “secret” and “top secret.” The alleged crimes occurred when she served as a soldier clerking in the IDF military - specifically, in the office of the Commander of the Central District - between 2005-2007.

She allegedly handed over many of the “top secret” and “secret” documents to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau. Blau, who was abroad when the investigation started, has refused thus far to return to Israel for investigation. It is suspected that many of the classified papers are still in his possession – despite an offer made to him that the returned documents would not be used to prosecute him or his source, Anat Kam.

Kam, who was secretly arrested during the investigation, has been indicted in the Tel Aviv District Court. She stands accused of collecting secret information, giving it to unauthorized individuals, and attempting to harm state security.

There's more over here. Another absolutely shocking case of betrayal against the state that needs to be dealt with very seriously.

Here’s a measure of how President Robert Mugabe is destroying this once lush nation of Zimbabwe:

In a week of surreptitious reporting here (committing journalism can be a criminal offense in Zimbabwe), ordinary people said time and again that life had been better under the old, racist, white regime of what was then called Rhodesia.

“When the country changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, we were very excited,” one man, Kizita, told me in a village of mud-walled huts near this town in western Zimbabwe. “But we didn’t realize the ones we chased away were better and the ones we put in power would oppress us.”

AT LONG LAST THE LIBS AT THE NYTIMES ARE ACCEPTING THAT THINGS WERE BETTER BEFORE MUGABE.

BUT THEY ARE NOT SO ACCEPTING ABOUT THE REAL REASONS.

WHY ARE THINGS SO BAD?

SOCIALISM. MUGABE HAS BEEN INSTITUTING SOCIALIST POLICIES AND THESE POLICIES HAVE DESTROYED THE ONCE GREAT ZIMBABWEAN ECONOMY.

LIKE THEY DID IN CUBA AND NORTH KOREA AND RUSSIA AND CHINA AND EVERYWHERE ELSE THEY HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED.

AS THEY ARE DESTROYING VENEZUELA.

AND THESE ARE THE SAME TYPE OF POLICIES WHICH OBAMA AND THE NYTIMES SUPPORT HERE.

WHICH IS WHY THEY AVOID THIS ISSUE ALTOGETHER; DENIAL; DENIAL; DENIAL.

THIS NOVEMBER - WHEN WE TOSS ALL THE SOCIALISTS OUT OF WASHINGTON, THEY WILL WAKE UP!

The trend for previous midterm elections reveals that the 28% re-elect figure puts the sitting majority party in a danger zone. In the two recent midterm elections in which the congressional balance of power changed (1994 and 2006), the percentage of voters saying most members deserved to be re-elected fell below 40%, as it does today. By contrast, in 1998 and 2002, when the existing Republican majority was maintained, 55% or better held this view.

Additionally, 65% of registered voters -- the highest in Gallup history, and by far the highest in any recent midterm year -- now say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election.

Also note that today, 49 percent of registered voters say the representative in their congressional district deserves reelection, and 40 percent say their representative does not. In late October 2006, the split on that was 54 percent "deserves," 33 percent "doesn't deserve." In November 1994, the split on that question was 54 percent "deserves," 30 percent "doesn't deserve."

AWESOME.

I THINK THE NUMBERS CAN IMPROVE FOR THE GOP BETWEEN NOW AND NOVEMBER.

I THINK THE GOP CAN WIN BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE - WITH SIGNIFICANT MAJORITIES.

I THINK THIS BECAUSE I THINK OBAMA IS MORE COMMITTED TO HIS RADICAL LEFTIST AGENDA THAN TO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, AND THAT THEREFORE HE WILL PURSUE HIS AGENDA AT THE PARTY'S EXPENSE.

OBAMA WILL DO THIS BECAUSE HE AND HIS COMRADES KNOW THAT IT'S NOW OR NEVER FOR THEM.

OBAMA WILL DO GREAT DAMAGE TO THE FREE WORLD BETWEEN NOW AND NEXT JANUARY.

Large-scale protests on Wednesday appeared to overthrow the government of Kyrgyzstan, an important American ally in Central Asia. Government officials said at least 41 people had been killed in bloody fighting between riot police and demonstrators in the capital of Bishkek and elsewhere in the country.

While the opposition declared that it was forming its own government, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev left Bishkek in the presidential plane, though it was not clear whether he was leaving the country or heading to another Kyrgyz city. Earlier in the day, the police used live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades against a crowd of thousands that massed in front of the presidential office in Bishkek, according to witness accounts.

A Lt. Colonel in the Air Force e-mails me with this (unclassified) tidbit on the effect of the Kyrgyz unrest on allied operations inside Afghanistan:

For the last few months we have been flying MATV's (the new, tougher MRAPs) into Manas AB, Kyrgyzstan via commercial 747's and transloading them onto C-17's for delivery into Afghanistan (mainly Kandahar, Bagram and Camp Bastion).

Due to 'civic unrest' Manas AB is now temporarily shut down to flying ops. To say this puts a crimp in the 'logistics hose' is an understatement. If the new gov't can't be convinced to play ball re: Manas we will be 'challenged' to say the least. . . .[I]t is also a significant mil passenger hub . . . .

OBAMA HAS SUCKED UP TO IRAN AND NORTH KOREA AND THE TALIBAN AND FATAH AND HAMAS AND TURKEY.

AND OBAMA HAS PLAYED IT TOUGH ON OUR ALLIES.

SO NATURALLY, OUR ENEMIES SEE THIS AND REALIZE THEY CAN ENCROACH AND ATTACK US WITH IMPUNITY.

WITHOUT FEAR.

THE RESULT THREATENS ALL THE GAINS IN AFGHANISTAN AND EVEN IRAQ.

IT HELPS IRAN AND FATAH AND HAMAS.

IF OBAMA WAS A CRYPTO-MUSLIM WHO WANTED US TO LOSE HE COULDN'T HAVE WISHED FOR A BETTER THING TO HAPPEN RIGHT NOW.